The boy has started from the bed Kneels, with his forehead to the south, From purity's own cherub mouth; IX. And how felt he, the wretched man Nor brought him back one branch of grace?- And hope and feeling which had slept X. And now! behold him kneeling there, And hymns of joy proclaim through heaven XI. 'Twas when the golden orb had set, While on their knees they lingered yet, There fell a light-more lovely far Than ever came from sun or star Upon the tear that, warm and meek, "Joy! joy!" she cried; "my task is done- T. MOORE. Z XCVI.-INDOLENCE. 'IMMERMAN asks, "Which is the real hereditary sin He of humanity? Do you imagine that I shall say pride, or luxury, or ambition? No! I shall say indolence. who conquers that, can conquer all." How perfectly true this is, we are not all ready to acknowledge; and, with due respect to a man who was a strange but deep thinker, we doubt whether the sin attaches to Nature. She is surely, in this respect, far above suspicion. "Nature," says a distinguished writer, "knows no pause, and attaches a curse upon all inaction." 2. The botanist, the geologist, the chemist, alike attest this great truth. Sitting down upon the sea-shore, and watching the rise and fall, and the ebb and flow, of the waves; marking the little ripples left in the sand to be moved and washed away at the next tide; deeply regarding the water-worn rocks or the chalk cliffs, which have been driven, as it were, inland by the ceaseless work of the sea; looking at the ever-springing grass, the cirrus and cumulative clouds which pass away and "leave not a rack behind;" listening to the continual chirp of the cricket, the "thin, high-elbowed things" which thread the grass; or watching the sea-gull lifting itself above the breaking waves, and then darting on its knows no pause. prey, we may well say that Nature 3. She builds up or she destroys, but she moves ever forward. It is with her as with her little trickling servant, the brook, of which a great poet has written, that "Men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever." But when here, man does come and go; and although, in the aggregate, he is a busy creature, working forever with brain and hand, still in the individual he is much given to indolence. 4. Now-a-days many people are proud of doing nothing, and inflate themselves with the wicked vanity, holding a prescriptive right of being indolent. But of all pride-and all of it is more or less without foundation, and foolish altogether that which builds itself upon a right to be idle and to do nothing, is the most foolish and baseless. 5. The man who is merely rich and lazy, and who has inherited sufficient money to keep him from the necessity of labor, has surely no good and sufficient reason to be proud. His position, if wisely looked at, is not a happy one. It is true that he may be said to be independent so far as a man can be. His progenitors have worked for him, and their accumulated labors, when invested in the funds or in an estate, put him out of the rank of those to whom glorious necessity forms the impetus of work. But, at the best, this state is without honor, and is somewhat contemptible. 6. The indolent man is of little use in a state. He is born to consume, and not to produce. The poorest haymaker, hedger and ditcher, or cobbler, whose labor pays for his daily existence, is a more useful, and therefore a more noble, man with regard to the commonwealth. Leisure, which is very good when indulged in after hard work, is poison to the soul and body too. 7. "I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide," said Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son; "for by it the man is efficiently destroyed, although the appetite of the brute may survive. A man who has no immediate necessity for work sinks from one state of quiescence to another. From the mere custom of inactivity, all labor becomes at first distasteful, and afterwards hateful. The muscles, being unused, grow weak and flabby; the body, after some struggles, relinquishes the desire to work, and the mind shares the laziness of its lower companion." 8. Yet, if there be one thing which can conquer the ills of life, which will make all things pleasant and all difficulties easy, it is industry, the great opponent and conqueror of that rust of mind of which we have been speaking. "There is no art or science which is too diffi cult for industry to attain to; it is the very gift of tongues," said Lord Clarendon, "and makes a man understood and valued in all countries. It is the philosopher's stone, and turns all metals, and even stones, into gold, and suffers no want to break into his dwelling." 9. The rough Abernethy's advice to a lazy rich man, full of gout and -idle humors, unhappy and without appetite, troubled with over-indulgence, and pampered with soft beds and rich food, was to "live upon sixpence a day and earn it," a golden sentence, a Spartan maxim, which would save half the ill-temper, the quarrels, the bickerings and wranglings of the poor rich people, and would rub the rust off many a fine mind, which is now ugly and disfigured from want of use. 10. There is no time to be lost. He who would make his mark in the world must be up and doing. Our younger men should look to this; luxury has produced indolence, and that in its turn has bred doubt and unhappiness. "Too many of our young men," says Channing, "grow up in a school of despair." Of despair, because of idleness and folly; they believe nothing because they do nothing. 11. A divine benediction attends on true work; its spirit is indeed the little fairy which turns everything to gold; and that man or woman who instils into his or her children habits of industry, who teaches self-dependence, “to scorn delights, and live laborious days," does much better than they who, after working painfully themselves, leave to their children a fortune which will corrupt by inducing an indolence that will surely prove a curse. J. H. FRISWELL. XCVII.-BE PATIENT. I. E patient! oh, be patient! Put your ear against the earth; birth How noiselessly and gently it upheaves its little way, Till it parts the scarcely broken ground, and the blade stands up in day. II. Be patient! oh, be patient! The germs of mighty thought Must have their silent undergrowth—must underground be wrought, But as sure as there's a Power that makes the grass appear, Our land shall be green with liberty, the blade-time shall be here. III. Be patient! oh, be patient!-go and watch the wheat-ears grow So imperceptibly that ye can mark nor change nor throe— IV. Be patient! oh, be patient!-though yet our hopes are green, The harvest-fields of freedom shall be crowned with sunny sheen. Be ripening! be ripening!-mature your silent way, Till the whole broad land is tongued with fire on freedom's harvest-day. R. C. TRENCH. |